6:22 PM,
Mar. 22, 2014

Blue Ribbon Hall is part of Milwaukee's Pabst campus, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Written by

Mary Bergin
Midwest Features

Two things make this Milwaukee brewery tour atypical: Your free pint is tapped before the sightseeing begins, and five minutes - tops - are spent talking about how beer is made.

What visitors learn will pertain much more to advertising, architecture, relationships and rebirth than hops, lagers, filters and fermentation. The 90-minute tour at Best Place is all about brewing history and the rise, fall and resurrection of the Pabst Brewing campus.

Pabst used to be the world's largest brewer. At its peak, in 1978, 15.6 million barrels of beer were sold. Within 20 years, the Milwaukee plant ...